Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. alias 

2. garden 

3. rivers 

4. enjoy 

5. little 

6. you 

and/or: 

1. unusual 

2. life 

3. walls 

4. serenity 

5. mapped 

6. madness

Here is my story:

Madness was mapped out for me if I followed the path of my ancestors, so I gave up the rat race and moved to a little plot near where two rivers met, here I planted a garden with vegetables, another with flowers, and now enjoy a life of peaceful serenity.

It was an unusual choice, given the family I'd been born into, with generations before me all strongly into being the best, the fastest, the richest, whatever it was, they all had to be the very top of the heap. The fighting, back-stabbing, snarky insults and so on had led more than a few to spend countless hours on psychiatrist couches begging to learn why they were "never good enough", why they were so pushed by parents, why they in turn became pushy parents. 

I reached a turning point when upon becoming vice president of the company I worked for, my mother hissed at me, "only VICE president?" Her sneer alone told me I hadn't done well enough, no words were needed.  I told her I would spend Christmas visiting Great Grandma Alice, and hurried away to hide my tears. 

Arriving at the nursing home, Great Grandma Alice took one look at my face and knew immediately what the trouble was. She told me I was different, reminding me of all the childhood times when I hadn't cared who saved the most pocket money, who won the school races on competition days. "You are cut from a more gentle fabric, Sarah. You might enjoy the race, but don't care if you don't win. You are like me. I must have told you at some point how your great grandfather Maxwell was so disappointed in my lack of drive and that is why he divorced me as soon as I gave him a son to carry on the name." 

"I moved here, to this little village, and used an alias for many years so that people wouldn't connect me to the family. I've been very happy here and now in my final years, with only these four walls around me, I am still happy. You can be happy too, away from the fierceness of struggling to be 'top dog'." "I'm glad I came to see you Granny, you have always made me feel better about myself and about life in general. I know I will never understand the striving to be top of the heap, and what good does it do any of them anyway? They are never happy. Cousin Jeff has just bought his third holiday mansion, this one on the coast of Spain, but none of them ever takes enough time to go away for a holiday!"

"What will you do now dear?" asked Granny. "I'm leaving the family," I said. "I've found a lovely little place near here, a cottage in the bend where the two rivers meet and I plan to live there and visit you as often as I can."